Description

Rise of the Pirate God is the fifth and last episode in Tales of
Monkey Island, a series of point-and-click adventure games based on the
Monkey Island franchise that was started by Lucasfilm Games with The
Secret of Monkey Island (1990) and ran until the fourth game Escape from Monkey Island (2000). After
nine years, the intellectual property was licensed by adventure developer
Telltale, Inc. where many of the original LucasArts adventure developers had
since moved.

The game starts off where the previous one ended.
Guybrush has been killed by LeChuck, and finds himself crawling out of his grave
in the afterlife. After crossing the river Styx, he arrives at the Crossroads,
where the afterlife and the real world meet. He learns that everyone who arrives
there, brings something with them to which they cling. He himself has brought a
Shred of Life, with which he hopes to return to save Elaine and beat LeChuck.

Unlike Escape from Monkey Island the game is rendered entirely in 3D, and the
typical Telltale engine is used. Guybrush can be controlled through the keyboard
keys or through mouse movement (selecting the character and dragging the cursor
to the desired destination). Only a single mouse cursor is used for all actions
and important items are stored in an inventory where they can be examined.
Entirely new for a Telltale game is the incorporation of the classic adventure
mechanic where items can be combined in the inventory to form new objects or to
interact with each other.

The game makes many non-essential references to the earlier games and contains
the classic Monkey Island ingredients such as humorous conversations and events,
based on slapstick, play on words, witty retorts and contemporary cultural
references, conversation trees, an unconventional approach to puzzle solutions,
and the anti-heroic main character. The game's puzzles include triggers based on
conversations, and item combination puzzles. It is not possible to die in the
game and player can set the ratio of hints Guybrush casually mentions while
progressing through the game. Full solutions are however never provided.

Unlike other Telltale episodic adventure series, individual episodes initially
could not be purchased separately. Because of the larger story arc or possibly
financial reasons, users were required to buy the five episodes as a whole as
they are released on a monthly basis. Later, the decision was reversed and
episodes were also offered individually.